Allure of the Seas: would you stay on the world's largest cruise ship?

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The vast glass-covered atrium in which I am having a coffee and a muffin could be in any capital city in the world. Lovers stroll arm in arm under a canopy of trees and ferns. Power-walkers stride past, their shirts mottled with sweat. A chef pops his head out of an Italian restaurant and waves at a woman in a bikini on a third-floor balcony. And a gardener in white overalls attends to the shrubbery, muttering to himself.

It is all so quiet, so peaceful, so normal…

But hark! Is that the faint hum of an engine?

Only this reminds you that this is no normal atrium, and that the chef, the gardener and the rest are sailing at 20 knots on one of the largest cruise ships in the world.

When the positively humungous Oasis of the Seas was launched in 2009, British noses – including mine – were turned up in horror. Six thousand passengers on one cruise ship? How vulgar! How ridiculous! How American!

American – and coming to the UK. In October, Oasis will make her debut port call in Southampton, ahead of a full Mediterranean season next summer by sister ship Allure of the Seas. Allure will sail from her home port Barcelona on seven-night itineraries and qualifies as the world’s largest cruise ship by less than 5cm. That is how much longer it is than Oasis of the Seas – the first ship measuring more than 200,000 tons when it launched in 2009. Other than that the “twins” are almost identical.

Royal Caribbean International, which invested £1.4 billion in Oasis of the Seas, knew what it was doing. The 17-deck cruise ship is large but perfectly formed: a miracle of modern engineering and design, and of perfect proportion. Everything is to scale, from the yellow lifeboats that take 370 passengers each, to the fifth-deck jogging track which extends for nearly half a mile.

When I boarded the ship in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a week-long Caribbean cruise, I expected an unholy scrum. Not a bit of it. The boarding procedures involved the minimum of hassle and, with more than 2,000 staff and crew, there was no shortage of helping hands.

True, the corridor on which my stateroom was situated was so long that my heart sank as I trudged along it, but the stateroom itself was a decent size, with a private balcony and all the facilities you would expect. I was ready to party.

Allure will be cruising the Mediterranean next summer (Photo: Getty)

For those inclined to talk to strangers of numerous stripes, the great joy of cruising is the people you meet, and here my fellow passengers were gloriously diverse. Women with babes in arms took breakfast next to wheelchair-bound nonagenarians. Whippet-thin joggers shared lifts with some of the fattest men on the planet. On the sun deck, a young man with “made in Dublin” tattooed in Gothic script on his back lay cheek by jowl with a white-haired old lady deep in Northanger Abbey. I chatted to postmen and pilots, pharmacists and plumbers, psychiatrists and primary school teachers.

The statistics speak volumes: about three-quarters were American, with a median age of around 45, but other parts of the world were well represented. Britons numbered 150, with a similar number of Australians, French, Russians, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Italians and fun-loving Finns.

There is something deliciously quirky about American cruise ships. In the daily news sheet, which runs to several pages, one regular item is get-togethers for FRIENDS OF DOROTHY and FRIENDS OF BILL W. Who are these lucky individuals, I wondered naively, and how have they acquired so many friends? It turns out to be a secret code for, respectively, lesbians and members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

When you see such a teeming mass of humanity, you realise that only snobs and shrinking violets recoil from sharing a holiday with strangers. Anyone who cannot find a soulmate on Oasis of the Seas is not looking hard enough. Six thousand chances to strike up a conversation, share a drink, part with a smile… it’s a slam-dunk certainty, as they say in the US, that you will end up making new friends.

The one frustration – not a problem on a smaller ship – is keeping tabs on the friends afterwards. On my first day aboard I chatted to a lovely couple from Sydney and assumed I would bump into them again, but never did. I looked for them in the card room, the spa, the internet café, the casino, the champagne lounge, the jazz club, the ice-cream parlour, the Globe and Atlas pub, but they were nowhere to be seen. They were simply swallowed up in the constantly shifting crowd.

Attractions on each of the two ships include a water park and an ice rink...

The vastness of the ship is matched by the plethora of the attractions on board. Where else could you find an ice rink in the middle of the Caribbean? Or be able to practise your surfing skills on a special slide, cresting real waves? Or drink in a bar that doubles as a lift, travelling between decks? I have never been on a cruise ship where it is easier to find things to do, come rain or shine.

Food was better than average for a cruise ship, without challenging for Michelin stars. You can take breakfast and lunch at a dozen different cafés and restaurants, each with its own character. “I put on about a pound a day on a cruise,” admitted a man from Michigan, as he got stuck into the buffet at the upper-deck dining room. Over-indulgence is followed by remorse, followed by more self-indulgence. The numbers queuing for Secrets to a Flatter Stomach classes at the fitness centre are matched only by the numbers queuing for doughnuts.

All a bit ersatz, the dining lacks authenticity. Sorrento’s Pizzeria is light years from the Bay of Naples, while the seafood at the Seafood Shack has clearly not come straight from the sea. But each has its own rudimentary appeal and the punters seem happy enough at the trough. Dinner is more structured but, considering the number of passengers, managed with remarkable efficiency. You turn up in the main dining room any time between 5.30pm and 9.30pm and wait five minutes or so to be seated – on your own, if that is your preference, or taking pot luck with strangers.

I took pot luck and, in seven nights, did not share a table with anyone I would call heavy going. Conversation flowed over succulent three-course meals. Jokes were cracked, life stories unfurled, email addresses exchanged over coffee. The democracy of the sea clasped us in its warm embrace.

Fine-dining options incur a surcharge – I had one memorable five-course dinner in a swish private dining room – and when it comes to alcohol you pay extra for every drink, with the option to pay a US$55-per-day deal that lets you drink until you fall over.

Only a minority opt for the deal, but they are so determined to drink their money’s worth that it creates two classes of passenger – those nursing beers for two hours and those lurching across the deck at crazy angles, even when the ship is in port. It all added to the human comedy, which Oasis offers in teeming abundance.

Of the post-dinner entertainment – and there is everything from jazz to karaoke, disco dancing to waltzes, musicals to art auctions – I have never seen people laugh so helplessly as they were at the stand-up comedy in a packed club on one of the lower decks.

...and a climbing wall

“Some fashion advice for the ladies,” said one wag, to whoops of delight. “If you’re really going to wear animal-print bikinis, you’d better not be bigger than the animals. I saw a zebra by the pool today that even a zebra wouldn’t recognise.” Some of the racier gags are unrepeatable, alas, but the act was classier than you would expect on such a behemoth of a vessel.

If life on Oasis of the Seas was one grand sweet song, life ashore, it must be said, was disappointing. The trouble with ships of this size is that only a limited number of ports can accommodate them. There is no shortage of excursions on offer, and the logistics of ferrying passengers to and fro are faultlessly handled, but the real Caribbean, for want of a better phrase, feels a long way off.

It was totally invisible at our first port of call – Labadee, on the north coast of Haiti. The island is owned by Royal Caribbean and has been Disneyfied to extinction. You are greeted by signs saying “Avast, you landlubbers!” and directed to “artisan markets” where the artisans are wearing the same, branded shirts and selling the same tat. Are people so naive as to fall for this stuff? Never again.

Jamaica was better. Striking out alone I took a tour of one of the old plantation houses, passed Usain Bolt’s old school and had a hearty lunch of jerk chicken and rum punch amid lush foliage. I also enjoyed my short snorkelling trip at our final port of call, Cozumel in Mexico. But it was not memories of Mexico or Jamaica or Haiti that lingered as I boarded the plane home from Florida: it was memories of people having a ball on the cruise ship to end cruise ships.

Happy, imperishable vignettes jostled in my brain. Having a martini cocktail in a plunge pool with identical twins from Kentucky. Talking cricket with a Jamaican waiter while a Russian violinist fiddled in the background. Shuffling my chips to and fro across the roulette table, praying to Lady Luck.

Then there was dancing under the stars to the strains of reggae. Cheering an 18-stone Puerto Rican to victory in the men’s belly-flop competition. Watching a perfect Caribbean sunset from the swimming pool. Laughing myself silly at an adult game show as a Victor Meldrew lookalike tottered across the floor in high heels and lipstick. Doing a headcount in a 24-person lift and getting to 29… Imperishable memories.

More than 200 years ago, Dr Johnson came up with an aphorism which still holds good today: “Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” If he were to travel on the Oasis of the Seas, this wacky world within a world, with its glorious cavalcade of humanity on holiday, he would probably express a similar sentiment.

A seven-night Western Mediterranean fly-cruise on Allure of the Seas (0844 493 4005; royalcaribbean.co.uk) next summer costs from £1,369 per person round trip from Barcelona, including flights and transfers. Ports of call include Palma de Mallorca, Marseille, Florence/Pisa, Civitavecchia (for Rome) and Naples. Departing on May 24, 2015.

Big ship survival guide

Don’t try to do everything and go everywhere – you will end up exhausted.

If you meet someone you like and want to see more of, make sure (without appearing like a stalker) you get their names/cabin numbers – it’s unlikely you will bump into them again.

Ignore passengers who are slimmer/fitter than you – and relish the many hundreds who are not.

Keep tabs on your food and alcohol consumption. With so many food and drink outlets the temptation to overindulge is extreme.

Get your general bearings on day one, and identify good places to rendezvous if you get separated from companions.

People-watch ’til you drop – you will never get a better opportunity.

If you want to meet fellow bridge players, Doctor Who buffs and Chelsea fans, advertise on one of the notice boards.

The best time to swim in the pools is early morning or late afternoon – in the middle of the day expect a scrum.